As data throughput requirements increase, and the amount of available spectrum decreases, carrier aggregation has emerged as an attractive option for wireless service providers. With carrier aggregation, a wider bandwidth may be achieved by utilizing multiple (typically two) component carriers, where the frequency bands centered at the component carriers need not be contiguous. For example, carrier aggregation may be employed in order to utilize both an 800 MHz carrier and an 1800 MHz carrier for transmitting data streams to a single user terminal. Because each component carrier corresponds to a different cell, and the various cells may have different coverage areas, use of carrier aggregation may increase overall coverage area, in addition to increasing throughput.
Current 3rd Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution (3GPP LTE) standards do not specify particular carrier aggregation scheduling schemes, but rather provide a large degree of scheduling flexibility. Scheduling schemes that take advantage of this flexibility, however, may increase the complexity of both network scheduling and user terminal receiver design.